Friday, September 07, 2007

Two Athletes on Winning and Loosing

"Competition can be a very intense experience and a very rewarding one, or it can be enormously destructive. External pressure, whether it’s exerted by a coach, a school, a ski club, or a country, is what can make it a negative thing. When they use you to satisfy their need to succeed, when they impose their value system on you, then competition isn’t personally rewarding anymore.... You’re either a winner or a loser.... There’s no way in my mind that you can divide humanity into those two categories."

- Andrea Mead Lawrence (Olympic Gold Medalist)



"In tennis, at the end of the day you’re a winner or a loser. You know exactly where you stand.... I don’t need that anymore. I don’t need my happiness, my well-being, to be based on winning and losing."

- Chris Evert (Champion Tennis Player)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is interesting that these stalwars are talking about it in these terms. Wonder how they made it to the top with such views. Obviously, they've gone through much tougher times than we can even start to imagine...

BTW, I didn't know Americans made the same English mistakes as those having English as a second language. Is that why they're loosing those jobs to Indian call centers? :-)

Paul Sunstone said...

LOL! So that's the reason Americans are loosing those jobs to Indian call centers! It all makes sense, now! :)

My hunch, Mahendra, is the athletes are only talking about the danger of making whether one wins or looses the game more important than simply playing the game. I guess it's a bit like asking, "Will you be happy if you've done your best, or will you only be happy if you win?" Does that make any sense?

Anonymous said...

Yes, that makes much better sense...thank you.